Dragon age discussion

[Tigranes]

How do people net 60-80 hours in their playthroughs, by the way? I finished mine at 40, and I did just about every quest I could find, so I'm positive I did most. I also did a fair bit of backtracking looking for things or finishing loose ends up. I assume most people dont' skip voiced dialogue as fast as I do, and plan out battles a lot longer.

 

Anyway, I understand how Easy might still be too hard for some people, especially on a console. I just hope this doesn't 'teach' Bio to tone down the difficulty in DA2 or whatever. A pity is that if half of those people complaining on the forums had stuck to it, they might well have found the difficulty more enjoyable after a little while.

 

Dwarf noble dual-wielding rogue now in the Tower of Ishal, and only a couple of individual drops from just running way too fast, as opposed to near party-wipes the first time (Hard). Looks like I've gotten used to it. The dwarf noble origin was much awesome, much better than the mage IMO.

[alanschu]

Do you listen to the full VO?

[Tigranes]

No, I'm a quick reader, and rare is the moment when the VO and the script is so good I want to sit and listen. I've always assumed that was the reason I take so less time than other people, ever since NWN1/KOTOR.

[Maria Caliban]

How do people net 60-80 hours in their playthroughs, by the way? I finished mine at 40, and I did just about every quest I could find, so I'm positive I did most.

 

Did you get the achievement for 75% of sidequests done?

What level did you end on?

[Leferd]

I'm at 47 hours and according to my save file, about 20% in. Level 12.

[Tigranes]

Level 20, just. I don't know because I ignore the achievement pop-ups. I did all the sidequests for the factiosn (Chantry, Irregulars, Thieves, Mages, Crows), generally talked to every named character (and some more) at each stage, visited everywhere, and only left a couple of known sidequests undone. I think I remember seeing something to the effect of 60-70% of Dragon Age completed on the character sheet near the end.

 

I usually tend to rush a little on my first playthrough and then take my time to see the sights on the second, so maybe I'll find things I missed this time. And hoepfully this time Shale works, dammit.

[Gromnir]

How do people net 60-80 hours in their playthroughs, by the way? I finished mine at 40, and I did just about every quest I could find, so I'm positive I did most.

 

Did you get the achievement for 75% of sidequests done?

What level did you end on?

 

some people finished bg2 in less than 40 hours.

 

*shrug*

 

our brain goes kinda numb when folks tell us how short a game was.. or how easy/hard. for every person that says they finished in 40, there will be an equal odd personage that claims excess o' 100 hours... 'course, with all the re-tracking through empty maps with dog and the bard... and recognizing the craptacular inventory management issues we got, am guessing that we should shave close to 10% off our somewhat bloated gameplay hour total.

 

HA! Good Fun!

[HoonDing]

The Deep Roads is really, really tedious... never-ending corridors with the occasional pack of mooks that pop up out of nowhere. Am I glad I picked this area last.

 

The Grey Wardens who retire there probably die of boredom rather than at the hands of Darkspawn.

[entrerix]

im at 45 hours and i still have to do breciilian forest and orzammar, plus a bunch of sidequests and whatever comes after all that

 

im on level 14

[Oner]

I'm loving the Deep Roads, the battle in the Trenches reminds me of the "Drow Bridge" in the first IWD. But much better.

I just did the bridge at the

dead legion

crib. Too bad I was more focused on "let me talk to the damn dwarf dammit!" instead of

epic siege-ing

.

 

 

Serves me right for not bringing along Alistair then, instead of that stupid Dwarf.

 

God, I hate Dwarves.

I gave 'im a Templar spec for the lulz.

 

 

A thought just occurred: Has anyone taken Shale along on the Mage's Circle quest? I would be most interested to see the dream that the sloth demon traps it in. Dog and Sten's dreams would also be interesting to see. (Wynne's was cool, but Al and Lel's were rather dull.)

 

This is now at the top of the list of things that might motivate me to play the game over again.

Dog

just sleeps in her

dream.

 

 

Actually, the notes are found on corpses in ruins of each main quest hub... when you find all notes you need to talk to a Dwarf in Orzammar and you get a new quest marked in your journal.

 

Really? I'm almost sure the quest activated when I found the notes Deep Roads, before I accidentally found the dwarf. I have no idea did I found any previous notes, the amount of stuff in codex kinda overwhelmed me.

 

I found the quest giving note in

Denerim and another in the Ash ruins

.

 

Like your PC wanders into the kitchen naked one night looking for milk and cookies and when she turns on the lights -surrounded by ninjas!

Cyber Plasma Ninja Dragons, amirite?

[~Di]

Gawk. How the hell do I get out of Denerim? I'm on the

Urn of Sacred Ashes quest. It took me to Denerim, but after having gone to Brother Genitivi's home, and killed the fake Weylon, I have no way to return to the World map to venture further.

 

 

What have I done wrong??

 

I can't even get to the Bio Dragon Age forums. I have no idea what's going on.

Edited November 18, 2009 by ~Di

[Aram]

In the "city map" screen, click the map icon at the bottom to switch to the world map.

[~Di]

Thank you!

[alanschu]

Whew, my foruming obsession has me "working" off the clock at BioBoards

[HoonDing]

Has anyone trouble making gold in this game? I'd like to amass enough to buy some nifty equipment, but it'll take over 200 gold.

 

I never bought any weapons or armour, just potion/poison ingredients... but I don't think I ever had over 100 gold.

[Majek]

i think i got most gold from Lyrium smuggling, but i didn't pay much attention to how much exactly was it in the end.

Edited November 18, 2009 by Majek

[Guest Slinky]

I had about 190 gold at the end. I didn't spend it that much, I just bought the stuff I needed. And I was playing the boring overgood way, so no stealing or extra gold. Sometimes I destroyed stuff when I was full and I never went back to anywhere just to get the stuff I left.

[HoonDing]

I guess the selling price of an item is the same for all merchants? No way to make any profit at all?

Edited November 18, 2009 by virumor

[Oner]

If your survival level is at least 2 and you're using the "experienced" or "wise" voice set, your character will remark "Warden sense tingling" when he spots enemies. This is a reference to Spiderman's spider sense.

I got it without survival.

[Gromnir]

Has anyone trouble making gold in this game? I'd like to amass enough to buy some nifty equipment, but it'll take over 200 gold.

 

I never bought any weapons or armour, just potion/poison ingredients... but I don't think I ever had over 100 gold.

 

so far, Gromnir has bought potions and potion making materials. we also bought 2 backpack upgrades (am at 90 slots.) the big-ticket items we has purchased: books. as wynne were royal screwed, we bought the arcane powhaz books for her... and we bought a skill book for our main character... as well as one talent boosting book. paying big gold to boost a single attribute point didn't seem worthwhile, so we skipped those books. we could also buy 1 additional talent book for our warrior, but Gromnir anticipates that we will level at least 1 additional time before we finish the game... and there is really only 1 more talent we is interested in adding to our character.

 

in any event, we current has 134 gold, 41 silver, and 11 coppers... and our chest at soldier's peak is full o' sellable 1007. am assuming that if we sold extra stuff, we would have over 200 gold.

 

HA! Good Fun!

[Monte Carlo]

I think it's time for a discussion about the class system in this game, because it's a bit odd. Forget the balance issues, DA was clearly designed by a wizard-obsessed munchkin who wants mages to rule the world.

 

The idea appears to be choose a class, within that class choose an archetype / specialisation or two then on top of that unlock a sort of prestige class with a skill tree and some stat bonuses.

 

Now I know it's been simplified to suit the MMO / console crowd and I don't have a problem with it - in fact simple is often better (2E AD&D, for example, is horrible). But in DA I honestly wonder the point of having a class system at all. Rogues can learn any combat ability but warriors can't open locks. Anybody can make poison or be a survivor, even somebody who grew up at Hogwarts surrounded by books. But only rogues can pick locks (I repeated that on purpose). And wear quite heavy armour. A warrior can't be sneaky. Rogues are rangers. And bards. Warriors arbitrarily learn the ability to freak out or become a mage-hunting zealot. Huh?

 

A genuinely classless system would have worked for DA. Furthermore, the specialist classes feel like an afterthought: they have none of the flavour of the better Forgotten Realms prestige classes (altho' I'm not a prestige class fan).

 

I would like to see either (a) more classes (b) no classes or © the ability to pay a penalty and buy cross-class skills. As it is the system feels strangely unsatisfactory, a bit of a weakness in an otherwise strong and enjoyable game.

[Enoch]

Yeah, the two spell books I've bought for my mage are the only serious expenses I've had yet. After Mages' Tower, Brazil, Honnleath, and the first stage of Redcliffe, I have spent about 40G on books, and have about 20G in my pocket.

[alanschu]

Just as a heads up, rogues can't go Two Handed Weapons or Sword and Shield spec either.

 

I'd still keep the mage a separate class. I think it's distinction in the lore merits it good enough. You probably could have warriors and rogues merged into one, but perhaps there was concerns about TOO much options being available, to the point where many users feel overwhelmed about where they spend their points?

[Monte Carlo]

^ I have to disagree, the system is pretty straightforward (even if the mechanics remain a mystery - I stand by my theory that nobody actually knows what the DA game mechanics are and that it's an elaborate hoax on people who like meta-gaming). A generic 'adventurer' class and a 'mage' is fine... personally I want a fighter / thief much as I might in 3E D&D but which Dragon Age doesn't really have (i.e. stealth / sneak damage combined with proper melee clout).

 

The setting is rich enough to justify some specialist prestige classes - Qunari Knight, Dwarven Death Legionnaire, Antivan Crow, Circle Mage, Apostate Witch, Templar, Blood Mage assassin, Tevinter Imperium Spy...

[Hurlshort]

I beat the game, very satisfying.

 

 

I sacrificed myself to put Alistair on the throne with Enora. As a dwarf commoner, I became a paragon and all that. Very nice ending. I really like how you get to control the other members of your group in another section during the final battle, I wish they did that more often in these party games. I think I'll reload from the landsmeet and take Loghain though, I had originally spared him but Allistar stormed off. I'd like to see Loghain sacrifice himself. I also think I'll do a more selfish play through soon enough and let Morrigan have my kid. I'd like to do a mage anyways.

 

 

I think I clocked in at around 50 hours and level 19.